Hook'em ... Patriots?

Not the alma mater I was expecting in the Final Four.

Texas, you let me down.

"Fear of Pants" creator, Dan Corbin ... the interview

It’s a banner day here in the “Not that you asked me, but …” studios. With me today is Dan “Corby” Corbin, a true blog pioneer … creator and writer of “Fear of Pants”. FOP was famous for features like "10 Things That are Bothering Me Today".

Corby is also famous for bad wigs, unpredictable facial hair, and very smooth moves on the dance floor. Rumor has it that a return of “Fear of Pants” is imminent. Welcome Corby.

It's an honor to be "interviewed" by NTYAMB. I'm a big fan of the blog. I feel special you've chosen to recognize my own long dead blog "Fear of Pants".

Well, it’s legendary, I only wish I could have been around during it’s heyday. Even hearsay retellings of some of the posts crack me up. In some ways you were the inspiration for NTYAMB.

Thanks. BTW, you really remind me of Anderson Cooper, so is it wrong to pretend I'm being interviewed by CNN.com?

That’s disturbing, as Anderson looks like the albino replicant from Blade Runner, but whatever does it for you.

Great. Thanks, Anderson.

What's the story behind the title "Fear of Pants"?

For many years, I've railed against the tyranny of pants. I used to give long (and usually drunken) tirades on why people should shed their pants and liberate themselves. I usually followed up such rants by streaking through the quad. Many people, especially older relatives, were disturbed and confused by my insistence that pants were evil and designed to "keep us down".

Today people are caught up in the war on terror yet we live in a society where it's perfectly acceptable to wear sweatpants while out to dinner, where men still wear Zumba pants at the gym, and kids wear baggy pants that make MC Hammer's pants look snug. I ask you Anderson, who will think of the children?! I honestly believe pants are the greatest threat to our children today.*

This web site should explain everything:
http://www.giantheads.com/p.html

*no I don't

Have you always been “touched”, as they say, or were you a popular kid?

It's interesting how time gives you perspective. I thought I was a pretty popular kid based on my impressive victories in the student council elections. After all, student council elections are just popularity contests, are they not? Of course, I usually ran unopposed. At the time I attributed this to the fact that no one had more friends than me. Simple formula: Challenging me = humiliating defeat. Later in life, I realized no one really wanted to be in Student Council except for dorks like me. Maybe my mom was just lying when she said I was "special" and that the kids really did like me.

Clearly she was speaking truth about the “special” part.

Your tale brings back memories of my own student council days. I beat a large girl with bad skin, but only because I paid a popular kid to stand next to me wearing Ray Bans holding a sign that said “CLAP NOW” while I gave my otherwise dull, all-business speech about how I was going to balance the activities budget and bring respectability back to pep rallies.

When and for how long was the initial run of your blog?

I first created Fear The Pants on blogger.com sometime in 2002. Later I set up www.FearOfPants.com , which ran through 2003. Then my server died. I'm a techy at work, but not at home, so I never bothered to get the site back up. Although, you've convinced me of the error of my ways. FOP will return.

What was your favorite post on the blog?

My rants about proper gym etiquette were very cathartic. Seeing people use the air dryers on their junk, having guys bump their bare ass against me while dressing, etc. Unacceptable.

I’ve been going to public gyms for over a decade and I’ve never seen, nor experienced anything like that. Where in the heck do you work out?

Since FOP isn't currently online, could you tell us some of the things that have been bothering you lately?

I'm a pretty happy go lucky guy. I'd prefer if my dog would stop barfing in my car, but besides that, I can't complain. Oh, wait. The whole global warming thing bugs me. So does Kobe Bryant. And don't get me started on those annoying McDonald's commercials. The Diamond Cartel is on my list too. Must ... calm ... down ... wait for it ... okay, I'm better.

Golly, I really thought there would be something more controversial … say, like coral necklaces on guys, dog sweaters, or Celebrity Ballroom Dancing. Do you have any thoughts on the following:

Home improvement television?

The message of these shows are, "Hey, look at how easy this is! You can do it too!". As a homeowner and a complete sucker, I fell for the DIY message. One look at my place shows I can't actually do these things. I have a half installed ceiling fan, unpatched walls, and a collection of light fixtures I'm afraid to install after blowing numerous fuses during my last attempt at electrical work. Damn you HGTV!

Preach it bruthah. Tilework requires years of training. Plumbing requires leather skin and the patience of Job. I’ve seen a lot of DIY remodels lately during my condo search, and I can spot a Home Depot botch job in 4 seconds flat. Crooked Pergo floors and faux painted stucco walls are a dead give-away.

What about hats?

You know the type of hats I love? Large foam cowboy hats. I detailed this on Fear of Pants. I had a great foam cowboy hat I used to wear while watching TV (pantsless). It used to freak the neighbors out as they walked by my window. I'm speaking of the hat, not the absence of pants, which we all know is perfectly normal. Unfortunately, my brother Mike lost it about 5 years ago and I haven't spoken with him since.

Brokeback Mountain may have ruined the cowboy hat on straight guys forever. Or maybe it will trigger a 10-gallon revival. Only time will tell.

Tapas?

I go out to dinner to EAT, not snack. Sure, tapas can be tasty, but I'm an entree man. Not quite a buffet guy, but close. All my running builds up a big appetite. Tapas merely tease.

Target?

I loves me some Target. While courting my now wife, I'd often take her to Target to purchase sundries. After such romantic evenings, she fell deeply in love w/ me forever and ever. So that's my dating advice to all single guys: take your ladies to Target.

Really? All that time I thought I had to shop there incognito. Now I learn it could have actually helped me. You seem to have done quite well. Jenny is a catch. Then again, you worked at the Olive Garden … I won’t go that far, not even for a great woman.

You are a recovered smoker. When, or under what circumstances, do you most miss cigarettes?

After making sweet, sweet love to my wife. Just kidding. No, I hate the smell of cigarettes. After 14 years of smoking I quit in February of 2002. I'm not known for smart decisions, but that was certainly one of them.

When you get a dog, what names are you considering?

Well, we did get a dog and we decided to keep his name: Ollie (Full name: Oliver Pantaloons Corbin). I admit it's not the most interesting name, but it does fit the little guy. I always thought I'd have a dog with a anthropomorphic name like Colonel Jessup, Mr. Barnes, Professor Stephanopoulos, Little Danny Terrio or Parham Raoofi. Of course, I also like more literal names like The Horror, Mr. Ass Sniffer, Humper, and Pooper McSleepsAlot.

When will we see "Fear of Pants" return?

I've learned not to make promises, so let's just say October of 2008.

Well let’s hope it doesn’t take that long … I have a short attention span. Hopefully something very annoying will happen to you and you won't be able to resist the urge to blog it out.

Thanks for being with us Corby.

It was my pleasure, Anderson.

Brunch in the hood

Thanks to Anthony Hoang for these great pictures of brunch at Kramer's. Love the fish eye lens on the digital camera.

Loves me some Mozella

I spent most of Sunday afternoon with Mozella. I stumbled across her song "You Wanted It" on iTunes and ended up buying the whole album.

Don't go to her website, and don't listen too close to the lyrics. This isn't Mozart, or even Norah Jones, but it's great chill music to have on in the background while you sit in a sunny window reading the Sunday paper eating an entire bag of Lime & Chili Tostitos.

Click the iTunes box here to sample Mozella's EP

The Chronic -WHAT! - cles of Narnia

Editor's Update 3/21/06: I found a permanent link for the video www.nbc.com

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Ok, I've said, "It's all about the Hamiltons baby" in my office twice now only to receive blank stares that indicate that not everyone on earth, contrary to popular belief, has seen the truly hilarious SNL short film "Lazy Sunday: The Chronicles of Narnia Rap".

Copywrite violations and lawsuits abound, so the pirated version is quickly disappearing from the internet, but you can still see it here as of 3/17/06. Or, if it disappears completly, you can read the rap lyrics here. I don't understand the controversy ... I first saw it when iTunes sent it to me for free on Christmas day. If it was given away as a freebie to begin with, what's the big deal?

If you can't find it, I also have it on my iPod, so you can ask to see it next time we be hangin.

But you do need to see it because so much of the rap has now entered into the American vernacular. You are sure to hear the following at least once in casual conversation, so you should understand the references:

"Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious!"
"It's all about the Hamiltons baby"
"I'm ghost like Swayze"
"We're about to be taken to a dream world of magic"
"2 no 6 no 12, bakers dozen!"

Do you Dooce?

Ok, I'm probably the last person on the planet to have found Dooce, a blog written by Heather Armstrong, an ex Morman who was fired for writing on her blog about people at her work, during work. She continued to write about her battle against her ex-employer, and now has one of the most read blogs on the net and makes a good living updating it every day.

She can be a little too acerbic (did I just use the word 'acerbic'?) for everyday reading, but she really is pretty funny, so I enjoy checking in occassionally. My favorite recently is about her trip to the gym with her husband.

Ok, so I didn't discover it ... my friend Laura Mayes, who is a rich source of all things hip and funny, sent me the link.

Check it out.

Degas, Sickert & Toulouse-Lautrec at the Phillips

I'm not a big art museum person, but I enjoy a few hours in a good gallery about twice a year. Toulouse-Lautrec is one of my favorites, so I walked down to the Phillips Collection off Dupont Circle this morning for one of my bi-annual fixes.

Snore.

I think I'm just a blockbuster kind of art lover. When I pay $12 for an exhibit, I want to see stuff I've seen on tv or in books. This exhibit was full of lesser-known works by three great artists. It was all very impressive, and I spent some time focusing on technique and choice of medium, blah blah, but I wanted to see something famous.

There were a couple of Toulouse-Lautrec works on cardboard that I really liked and recognized from research I did for a paper in college. But overall, if you want to see TL, the National Gallery has a spectacular collection that you can enjoy for free.

I was pleased to be able to see the great Degas work "L'absinthe" (the feature piece for the show), famous not only for its powerful impact, but for the stir it caused when initially exhibited. Oh and they had a couple of those weird Degas ballerina sculptures that seem to be in every museum on the planet ... the bronze ones of the girl with her head cocked back and her toe pointed forward, with the real ribbons in the real hair and the wire mesh tutus. Creepy.

Other than that, the aficionados wandering through the exhibit seemed very pleased, so I suppose if you knew more about these artists and this era, you would be more stoked to see this collection, much of which was being displayed for the first time.

So I guess I'm too low-brow for good art. It's like people who say they love live theater but only go to see Cats and Phantom. I'll stick to the mainstream Smithsonian and enjoy recognizable art with the tourists and high school art teachers.

http://www.phillipscollection.org

Fare for us arty types:

I love MocoLoco, a website of architecture, photography and product design. There's lots of silly stuff on there, to be sure, but if you surf through the different sections, there is plenty that is interesting and intriguing. If you look in the next few days, check out the photography study on abandoned pools of old motels.

The architecture section is the best: http://mocoloco.com/archives/cat_architecture.php

Bravo Reese!

I haven't seen Walk the Line, and I wasn't particularly rooting for Reese for best actress, but WOW, what a fantastic acceptance speech. Particularly after the pre-show silliness (see below), Reese's sincerity and humility made her worth every penny of the kagillion dollars she makes per picture. What a class act. Speech excerpted below, remember this is a transcript ... it doesn't read as well as it came across live, but it's still great:

Oh my goodness. I never thought I'd be here my whole life growing up in Tennessee. I want to say Johnny Cash and June Carter had a wonderful tradition of honoring other artists and musicians and singers, and I really feel that tradition tonight. It is very important, and I really feel it, so I want to thank the Academy for this incredible honor. I want to say thank you to so many people who helped me create this role [...] a very special thank you to Jim Mangold who directed the film and also wrote this character, who is a real woman, who has dignity and honor, and fear, and courage [...] And I really appreciate that. It was an incredible gift that you gave me. So thank you. And T-Bone Burnett for helping me realize my lifelong dream of being a country music singer. Thank you T-Bone. [...] I am so blessed to have my family here tonight. My mother and my father are here. And I just want to say thank you so much for everything, for being so proud of me. It didn't matter if I was making my bed or making a movie. They never hesitated to say how proud they were of me. And that means so very much to a child. So thank you, Mom and Dad. I want to say thank you to my wonderful husband and my two children who should be going to bed. And thank you for loving me so much and supporting me. And I want to say that, my grandmother was one of the biggest inspirations in my life. She taught me how to be a real woman, to have strength and self respect, and to never give those things away. And those are a lot of qualities I saw in June Carter. People used to ask June how she was doing, and she used to say -- "I'm just trying to matter." And I know what she means. You know, I'm just trying to matter, and live a good life and make work that means something to somebody. And you have all made me feel that I might have accomplished that tonight. So thank you so much for this honor.

Larry McMurtry, who won for best screenplay adaptation from a book for Brokeback Mountain, has been my favorite author for years. I really wish I had never seen him on TV, because I aways imagined him having a thicker Texas drawl and more swagger. Instead he's kinda whiny. I still love Last Picture Show though.

Crash is sitting on my DVD player ... guess I oughta go watch it.

Oscar bobble-heads

Here I sit watching the Oscar pre-show coverage on E! Why, you ask? I'm really not sure. I'm on my way to an Oscar party and wanted to be in the know when I arrived.

But let me just say that the E! tag team of Ryan Seacrest and Isaac Mizrahi interviewing celebrities on the red carpet together provide the ingredients for what must be the most painful, tortured moments on live television. What the heck? Who made the decision to put these fools on television?

Ryan is a pretty man who looks the Hollywood part, but I don't know a single woman who likes Mr. Tanandpluck. He doesn't seem to be contributing much commentary at all, except that he can't stop talking about how much he wants to do Jessica Alba. Ok, ok Ryan, we get it, you're straight.

I may be more sensitive to the horror that is Ryan Seacrest after reading my friend's hilarious blog, Holly's Top Five. Ryan is ranked number one in Holly's list of the biggest pop culture tools. She now lives in LA, and I really worry that one day we will hear on the news that she spotted Ryan or Mark McGrath on the sidewalk and ran them over with her car. She has a violent aversion to them, and I'm starting to understand why.


Isaac Mizrahi is just an ass. He's akward and rude. He's Joan Rivers without the resume. At the moment, he's talking about who does and who does not have class, yet he has groped young girls and talks about pubic hair on tv.

All the celebs walk up to Mr. Mizrahi very tentatively with a wary look in their eye. The wise Oscar people have installed a hedge between the celebs and the interviewers to prevent an encore of Isaac's fondling of young Scarlet Johansen at the Golden Globes. In the ten minutes I have been watching, Isaac has asked the following stupid questions:


"Are you staying at a hotel close by?"
"Do you have a tatoo?"
"Did I just see you applying lip gloss?"
"Are you excited to be nominated?"
"Did you see Brokeback Mountain in a theater or in a private screening?"

Perhaps an Interview 101 class is in order before the next awards season, that is if they let Ryan and Isaac keep their jobs.

I'm looking forward to Jon Stewart's opening monologe. He's a big lib, but I think he's really smart and funny. The rest of the evening could be a real snore. Brokeback, Brokeback, Brokeback. Luckily my friend Mike is bringing his cards and poker chips.

I'll just change the channels for now. Oh, here's Oscar on another channel. Maybe they will have better commentators.

Billy Bush.

Oh for crying out loud.

Getting to know you quiz

I usually don't like "pass it on" emails, but I received one from my friend Laura in Houston that I like. It asks the recipient to reply to all, add four people to the distribution list, and then answer the following 10 questions in the email:

1. Four jobs you've held:
2. Four movies you can watch over and over:
3. Four places you've lived:
4. Four TV shows you love:
5. Four places you've vacationed:
6. Four of your favorite restaurants:
7. Four of your favorite dishes:
8. Four websites/blogs you visit daily/ regularly:
9. Four places you would rather be right now:
10. Four people you will email with this post so that they can fill out the questions:

For starters, I like making lists. I also think it's fun to see what other people say even if you don't know them. But I don't like getting email from a bunch of people I don't know, so instead of emailing in on, I thought I would post my answers here, then ask YOU to click "Comments" below and answer the questions yourself. It would also be cool if you clicked the email icon and sent this post to 4 of your friends so they can join the fun.

Be sure to read the comments that others have posted.

So here are Kalorama Ken's answers:

1. Four jobs you've held:

Auto parts clerk at NAPA
Janitor at a church
Attorney
Ice cream juggler

2. Four movies you can watch over and over:

Napolean Dynamite
When Harry Met Sally
Office Space
Any John Hughes movie prior to 1990

3. Four places you've lived:

Lockhart, Texas
Austin, Texas
Falls Church, Virginia
Washington, DC

4. Four TV shows you love:

The Office (US version)
"I Love the 80s" ... or the 70s, 90s, or 00s
Boy Meets Grill
Will & Grace

5. Four places you've vacationed:

Rio
Big Bend, Texas
Venice
Prague

6. Four of your favorite restaurants:

Blue Hill, NYC
Grill from Ipanema, DC
Shady Grove, Austin
Yanez Cafe, Maxwell, TX

7. Four of your favorite dishes:

the burger at IOTA, Arlington
tamales at Yanez Cafe
dad's fajitas
my Frogmore Stew


8. Four websites/blogs you visit daily/ regularly:

www.apple.com
www.yahoo.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.blogger.com


9. Four places you would rather be right now:

on the farm in Brazil
reading on a blanket in the sun in Central Park
Mozart's coffee shop on Lake Austin reading the Austin Chronicle
playing with mini-trains with my niece

10. Four people you will email with this post so that they can fill out the questions:

Marlene
Rhanya
Logan
Erik

So be sure to read the comments to see what other's have put on their lists, and then leave a list with your responses. DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.

PS. I've posted Laura's original email in the comments to get us started ...